


Now I've Been Crazy

by mangochi



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Fever, Fluff, Hallucinations, M/M, sick!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-17
Updated: 2014-03-17
Packaged: 2018-01-16 02:33:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1328665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangochi/pseuds/mangochi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>McCoy’s sick and Jim does his best to look after him. Sick!fic and fluff and everything that comes with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now I've Been Crazy

**Author's Note:**

> [Based off this prompt on my Tumblr](http://mangopuffs.tumblr.com/post/79839780045/now-ive-been-crazy-1-1-pg-13-ish)

McCoy looks terrible, even to Jim’s utterly inexperienced eyes. He’s too shocked to even enter the dorm room at first, dropping the grocery bags at the door and edging in carefully, like the wheezing lump in the center of the floor is an alien menace to be dealt with. 

"Bones?"

He can barely make out a damp strip of forehead beneath the pile of comforters, the skin flushed as McCoy turns his head just enough to glare out with one miserable eye. 

Jim decides to take the strangled sound the older man makes as an attempt at telling him to piss off.

"All right, up you go," he says briskly, deciding that McCoy’s too incapacitated to do more than think violent thoughts in his direction. He crosses the room in two strides and bends, peeling back the layers of blankets until he can make out McCoy’s huddled form.

He’s wearing nothing more than an undershirt and pajama pants, the former plastered to his chest and back with sweat and the latter slipping off his waist. Jim pointedly avoids looking too hard beneath the edge of McCoy’s shirt as he grips the other man’s arm and tries to hoist him to his feet. He can be a gentleman, after all, if he puts his mind to it. And there’s something just pathetically pitiful about McCoy’s state for him to even consider taking advantage, as he usually would.

"I told you to stay in bed this morning," he reminds, wrapping an arm gingerly around McCoy’s side to help him hobble along. Pressed this closely against him, he can feel the heat radiating from McCoy’s body, practically burning where their bare skin meets, and Jim feels his concern rising exponentially.

"Bathroom," McCoy croaks, his eyes already closed as he flops uselessly onto the mattress. 

"Well, you tried," Jim tells him sympathetically. He goes and collects McCoy’s layers, dumping half of them on the man. 

"Cold," McCoy complains.

"You’ll be fine." Jim kicks the other blankets away mercilessly. "You’ll overheat, otherwise. You’re lucky I don’t stick you in an ice bath. Remember when you did that to me last semester?"

McCoy doesn’t answer, and Jim bends to run a hand over his forehead. “Shit, man, you’re really burning up,” he murmurs, some of his worry coming out in his voice despite his attempts to conceal it. “You should probably go to the clinic.”

"Mmmm." McCoy shakes his head, then grimaces when the movement inevitably upsets his equilibrium. 

"Doctors," Jim mutters in mock exasperation, giving McCoy’s face one last pat. The man turns and leans against his hand, the motion probably unconscious as his body instinctively seeks a cooler surface. Jim knows that, but he lingers a moment longer anyway before going off to soak some towels.

McCoy’s mumbling something about ducks when he returns with a basin of ice water. 

"What was that?" Jim asks absently, kicking over a footstool and planting himself beside the bed.

"Those fucking ducks," McCoy tells him very seriously, his eyes wide and bloodshot as he gazes dazedly over Jim’s shoulder. "The hell did you get them from, kid?" _  
_

"Um….I don’t have any." He wonders if the ducks are code for something. Bananas? Beers? Socks? "Bones, you’re starting to freak me out."

"Asshole," McCoy says clearly, before breaking out into another bout of coughing. Jim wrings a towel out dutifully, trying to remember how McCoy does it for him, and he wipes gently at the sweat beading on McCoy’s forehead.

"When you get sick, you go all out, huh," he muses, brushing back McCoy’s sweat-damp hair. "It’s just like you." He’d always liked the way McCoy’s hair feels in his hands, just long enough to wrap his fingers in and tug when the moment is right. Usually that’s enough to bring both of them over the edge, Bones arching beneath him and his hips shuddering forward in one last-

"Elephants," McCoy mutters in his fevered delusions, and Jim looks down distractedly at him. The man’s eyes are wide open, staring blankly at the ceiling as Jim resoaks the already drying towel. 

"Elephants?"

"God, I’m losing it," McCoy realizes, in a brief moment of lucidity. Then, he’s gone again in whatever land his mind vacates to under high-stress situations, blinking fuzzily at Jim. 

Jim takes the opportunity to dip down below McCoy’s jaw, swiping at the sweat pooling in the hollow of his throat. The man shudders involuntarily, whether from the cold towel or the influenza, Jim’s not certain. But, damn, the way Bones looks right now…..the way he’s panting, his skin flushed clear down to his shoulders, it’s right up there in Jim Kirk’s favorite snapshots of Leonard H. McCoy’s Incredibly Hot Moments.

"Snap out of it," he tells himself. "He’s  _sick._ " Though, in all likelihood, Bones will probably be up and slinging hypos left and right again in a couple of days. The guy’s always bounced back fast.

He realizes McCoy’s gone uncharacteristically quiet and lifts the towel curiously. McCoy’s looking at him as intently as he can with a temperature shot through the roof and a truly unfortunate sinus condition.

"Whatcha looking at?" Jim asks teasingly. He starts to move his hand away and McCoy’s arm shifts, catching Jim’s wrist in his burning hot grasp and holding him still. Somehow, the fever makes his hazel eyes eyes darker, the pupils blown out wide. 

"Sky in your eyes," McCoy whispers, his voice hoarse and thick with the Southern accent that usually has Jim on his knees in seconds. 

"God," Jim mutters, feeling a little unsteady himself as he traces the line of McCoy’s jaw with his captured fingertips. "You’re a piece of work, you know that?"

McCoy turns his head instinctively and nuzzles his hand, and Jim feels his own temperature racket up a few notches. It looks like it’s going to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: As it happens, “The Stable Song” by Gregory Alan Isakov is on my McKirk playlist. Which is also where the title’s from. Yo.


End file.
